The eagerly awaited telemovie about Julian Assange's teenage years as a hacker in suburban Melbourne, from acclaimed writer-director Robert Connolly (Balibo).

Rachel Griffiths was superb in her portrayal of Assange's mother, Christine.

Our view

Advertisement

Adapted from Suelette Dreyfus's 1997 book Underground: Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier, Robert Connolly's movie-length look at the forces that shaped the man behind WikiLeaks is fascinating, absorbing, tense and, ultimately, just a little unsatisfying. Where's the next chapter, damn it?

Alex Williams looks feasibly like a young Assange but his performance borders on mime: the young Julian, it seems, believed keystrokes speak louder than words. And when he does speak, it's not so much to chat as to push back against authority in one form or another - with brevity and, occasionally, with anger.

Electra (Laura Wheelwright) and a young Julian.

Authority takes many forms in the world of young Julian: there's the stepfather who wants to whisk his younger half-brother away to join The Family; there's the mother Christine (a superb Rachel Griffiths) who wants to enlist Julian to her political campaigning, directed mostly at a US-dominated military-industrial complex; there's the girlfriend Electra (Laura Wheelwright) who just wants him to be there, at least occasionally, to help with the baby they're supposedly trying to raise together in a Thornbury squat. And, of course, there's the computer security networks of the world.

To many, the bits about The Family and the teenage pregnancy (Assange fought and won a bitter custody battle, an end note tells us, and raised his son alone for many years) will come as shocks. But for me, the biggest surprise - and delight - was in the detailing of the technology that made Assange's earliest politically motivated hacking possible.

The ping as the dial-up modem connected, the tangle of wires at the telephone exchange, the little cup that you held over the mouthpiece to trick the phone into allowing free international calls (I last saw one of those in a London pub 20 years ago) were all familiar yet strange, like relics from the dawn of the industrial era. In truth, they were the bare bones of the internet, visible at the time only to those few who had the curiosity and know-how to go looking for them.

Underground is structured like a heist movie, with Assange trying to crack the biggest vault of all - the US military database - while an eager but ill-equipped copper, detective Ken Roberts (Anthony LaPaglia), races to stop him.

In this telling, there was no question of motivation: by the end of Underground, Assange was doing it not for his own gain - not even, any longer, simply to prove that he could - but rather because he had a mission that his mother would understand well enough. He wanted to prove that civilians killed in Operation Desert Storm were deliberately targeted. In other words, that the US was guilty of war crimes. Sound familiar?

But Underground was even-handed, even while granting the fundamental legitimacy of that aim. The scene in which Assange and Roberts confront each other about their respective moral responsibilities - to "the truth" and to "our boys over there" respectively - rings as true now as it might have then.

On the sexual front, Connolly was deft. Assange drifts from Electra not out of caddishness but merely because he is seduced by the siren call of the modem; the nights simply aren't long enough to hold both of them. There's one fleeting moment when the young couple have moved into a share-house squat and a pretty young thing attempts to lure Assange upstairs that hinted at his burgeoning sexual potency, and at the way brief encounters without ongoing responsibilities might sit more comfortably with his sense of mission than does domesticity. But it was suggestive rather than definitive and, like so much else in the movie, open to interpretation.

At any rate, noticeably missing from the plethora of title cards at the end was an update on the status of Assange's extradition proceedings to face questioning over sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Given the fluidity of the situation, that might have been a prudent decision rather than a prudish one.

In a sentence

A considered yet gripping look at the crucible in which Julian Assange was formed and, arguably, deformed. Brilliant.

Grade: A+

Poll: How did you rate Underground: The Julian Assange Story?

Poll form

Please select an answer. Brilliant: a memorable piece of Australian drama

These polls are not scientific and reflect the opinion only of visitors who have chosen to participate.

154 comments so far

I watched the "movie" last night. To say it was high grade Australian drama is a bit of a stretch. Trying to make Assange a hero seemed to be the main aim, which it did well in achieveing.For me, the program prior to the movie, interviewing one of his ex employees from wikileaks was more enlightening and probably closer to the truth. Assange is an attention seeker. He loves people focusing on him. It seems some parts of the media love to feed his ego. He shows scant disregard for anyone other than himself. Asking his staff to sign a gag order, covering anything he said or wikileaks did for 10 years or be liable for $12million. Says everything doesnt it. Similiar to a current shock jock - Assange is willing to dole things out, but is not willing to risk anyone finding out the real truth & quickly does not want to feel the heat from anyone. As for the USA wanting to extradite him, they could have done that easier from the UK than from Sweden for over 2.5 years. Assange is avoiding going to Sweden because he is worried that the truth will come out. Why are the media not pushing for it to happen, so that the 2 girls can have their day in court?

Commenter

Seriously? 10?

Location

Lidcombe

Date and time

October 08, 2012, 10:41AM

Seriously? You don't see the logic behind having a gag clause for employees in an organisation that is dealing with top secret, confidential government information that is leaked by employees of said governments at great risk to their own personal freedom? Makes sense to me...

Commenter

lolwat

Location

Date and time

October 08, 2012, 11:46AM

Assange is much more popular in UK than Sweden and a US extradition there would cause the UK govt a huge civil liberties headache. Bob Carr keeps running your argument and it doesn't work.

Why won't the Swedish authorities go to UK to see Assange? Because they have done a deal with the US to get hold of him.

Commenter

Maria

Location

Date and time

October 08, 2012, 12:52PM

lowlat - if that was the case why not limit the clause to just confidential information? seems a bit hypocritical given the nature of wikileaks business.

Commenter

elloco

Location

Date and time

October 08, 2012, 1:41PM

@lowlat : Is this similar to the logic of having crimes like treason for those that deliberately disclose state secrets?

Assange is nothing if not a complete hypocrit. He never seems to apply the same standards to himself as he demands from others.

Commenter

Oz

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

October 08, 2012, 1:43PM

Any extradition of a person to face the death penalty in another country would be illegal under UK law.

Commenter

Trev

Location

Date and time

October 08, 2012, 1:53PM

@lolwat, so Wikileaks is allowed to reveal top secret government information that could jeopardise peoples safety, or useless politically embarrassing information (like what Hilary Clinton personally though of KRudd) but Wikileaks gets to protect all there sources? This whole thing is so complicated and people carry on like it's black and white and Julian is some hero. The truth must be somewhere in the middle.

Imagine if all your personal emails were leaked and everyone knew exactly how you 'really' felt about everything? Politics in any place can be a minefield and saying the whole truth and nothing but isn't always the best way to go about things.

Commenter

cap'n crunch

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

October 08, 2012, 2:02PM

Ah, yep. Considering the repurcussions for revealing such sensitive information, you would protect your sources too, one would hope...

Commenter

lolwat

Location

Date and time

October 08, 2012, 2:27PM

Well Assange was literally handed this information. It wasn't some sort of CIA / Mission Impossible / Bond type effort to secure the information.

If the US really wanted to get him, they'd have gotten him by now. For aforementioned reasons, they are not pursuing him. It's not as if the UK would go to war over this guy.

Commenter

Scott P.

Location

Date and time

October 08, 2012, 2:36PM

Julian Assange is a great Australian who has shone the light of truth upon the shadowy operations of Government. Hahahaha, just kidding. In reality he is a traitor to the west. I would not like to see him extradited and tried in the US, but the question becomes how do you handle someone as dangerous as himself who believes that publishing all information is "a good thing". Here we have the narcissist at his best. I would have more sympathy for him if he published top secret communications between China, Russia, Arab states etc with the same glee as he has done against the US, but the fact that he hasn't should tell you all you need to know about this man. His motivations are not about truth, they are about inflicting maximum damage upon those whose ideologies he disagrees with. Hence the talk show he has sponsored by the Russian Government (do you think if it wasn't it would have been allowed?). If the powers that be have any sense, they'll make sure he enjoys Ecuadorian hospitality indefinitely.